Best Budget Printers of 2025: My Top 10 Budget-Friendly Options

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In my experience, the best cheap printer should provide excellent print quality, fast printing, and lots of features, while remaining affordable - from the initial cost to the ongoing printing costs.
I've reviewed over 200 of the best home printers and the best printers for small businesses, and here are my top 10 budget printers for home and office printing. I've tested many of them, and each one stands out for its low price and excellent performance.
For a basic color laser printer, I recommend the HP LaserJet Pro M15w. For those looking to cut costs on everyday printing, I really like the Epson EcoTank ET-2800 (known as the ET-2850 outside the U.S.), which comes with refillable cartridges. Both printers impressed me in my review for their balance of price and performance.
Below you'll find my full thoughts on each of the best cheap printers. For even more savings, check out our picks for the best scanner deals.
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1. HP Deskjet 2755e Wireless Color Printer — $84.99 at Amazon with 3 months of free ink. The Deskjet 2755e is a top-selling inkjet printer on Amazon that comes with enough ink to print up to 4,200 pages thanks to its built-in Instant Ink feature. It’s compact, has a built-in scanner, and uses dual Wi-Fi for improved connectivity.
2. Canon Pixma MG3620 Wireless Color Printer — was $80 on Amazon, now $69, save $20. Available in red, black, and white, the MG3620 is one of the few printers at this price that supports double-sided printing, which is great for printing brochures and flyers.
At the time of our testing, it was the smallest laser printer, and it's likely to remain so. The two trays fold neatly so that they're only slightly larger than an A4 sheet of paper and no taller than your average smartphone.
The LaserJet Pro M15w is an ideal budget printer in many ways: it combines the compact size and affordable price of an inkjet with the speed, economy and stability of a laser. The LaserJet Pro M15w prints thousands of documents quickly and reliably using just one toner cartridge. It holds 100 sheets of paper and prints at an excellent 19 ppm. Unfortunately, it lacks duplexing and a display, but considering the price, it’s a steal.
The Epson EcoTank ET-2850 is a relatively affordable all-in-one printer that's primarily aimed at home office or small office workers. This compact device won't take up much desk space, and since Epson bottled ink is about 90% cheaper than cartridges, it's one of the cheapest printers to run.
To keep the price competitive, Epson has cut out some features: there’s no front paper tray, just a 100-sheet rear tray, and no touchscreen or NFC. It does have basic features like automatic two-sided printing, high-resolution scanning, and Wi-Fi and AirPrint compatibility, and it can print on paper up to A4. Because its micro-piezoelectric nozzle array is smaller than other EcoTank printers, print quality is acceptable rather than outstanding, but it’s good enough for the average business user. Its real selling point, however, is its extremely large ink capacity. A set of five ink bottles will print up to 20,000 pages before you need to buy more.
Canon has stripped away all the essential features of this all-in-one, giving you a surprisingly powerful portable printer. There’s no Ethernet port or scanner dock, but its flat-top, lattice design is perfect for scanning documents using your smartphone and Canon’s companion iOS/Android app. It also has Bluetooth and AirPrint for easy wireless connectivity, so the printer doesn’t need to have a touchscreen.
It can print on glossy photo paper or plain paper, and the main paper tray holds 60 sheets of A4 paper. Canon includes two small inkjet cartridges: one black and one colour. There’s no automatic duplex mode, but if your print volumes are small and you don’t print often, that may not be an issue. It also has a silent mode to reduce printing noise, making it suitable for home office use.
The HP Deskjet 2755 (known as the HP Deskjet 2710 in the UK) is a stylish and affordable all-in-one. It can print, copy and scan in colour and supports a wide range of media sizes, from envelopes to A4. It doesn’t support automatic two-sided printing, but it does have self-healing Wi-Fi and is compatible with AirPrint and Google Cloud Print.
This printer didn't print photos very well, and color accuracy and page yield were poor for both color and black-and-white documents.
As with all cheap inkjet printers, cartridge prices are a big issue, but this printer can be purchased with HP's Instant Ink subscription service, which can save you around 70% on supplies. What's more, replacement cartridges will be mailed to you before you run out.
The Pantum P2200W proves that laser printers don't have to be expensive. This simple black-and-white printer costs less than many inkjet printers, but prints faster—up to 22 pages per minute—and the included entry-level cartridges last 700 pages. Standard cartridges provide 1,600 pages at the lowest cost per page of any inkjet cartridge.
Unfortunately, it doesn't support automatic two-sided printing, but the Wi-Fi Direct feature provides instant wireless connectivity. It's small enough to fit on a desk; the input tray holds 150 sheets, and the output tray holds 100 sheets.
The Canon Pixma TS702 (TS705 outside the U.S.) is a powerful all-in-one printer at an affordable price. Although it doesn’t have its own flatbed scanner, it can print, scan, and copy in color. You can use your smartphone instead of a scanner, which lowers the cost of this handy device and frees up more space for paper. The main tray holds 250 sheets of paper, and the rear tray holds 100 sheets of paper.
Its print media is very flexible and allows you to print blank CDs and even nail stickers from a list of compatible blank media. It supports automatic two-sided printing and improves print quality by using five separate cartridges instead of the usual four.
The Pixma TS705 also supports Canon XXL cartridges, so you won't have to refill them as often (but they will cost more than regular cartridges).
Brother has stripped down this laser printer to the bare minimum to keep its price at the level of a regular inkjet. Although it lacks some features, such as automatic duplexing, Wi-Fi, and a lockable paper tray, the Brother HL-1112 is compact and efficient. It prints at 20 pages per minute, and the open paper tray holds 150 pages.
This printer is compatible with Windows and macOS, and is quite lightweight and easy to carry. The toner supply in the box is enough to print 700 pages, and the new standard cartridge is designed to print 1000 pages. Brother is the perfect choice for affordable, fast and convenient monochrome laser printing.
The Canon Pixma series has long been recognized for its excellent photo printing capabilities, and the Canon Pixma MG3650S lives up to the hype. The affordable models in this series are the icing on the cake, allowing you to get high-quality prints of photos and other images without spending too much money.
Another big plus is that it is a wireless printer, so you don’t have to worry about cables. With a print resolution of up to 4800 x 1200 dpi and a color print speed of almost 10 pages per minute, this model is certainly impressive, especially in this price range. Plus, it can be equipped with an optional scanner and copier.
Since Canon's black cartridges are expensive, this printer isn't for users who only need to print text documents. But if you want to print color photos, it's a good investment.
Epson's entry-level MFP is as sleek and smart as the other sleek and minimalist Expression Home printers, and has almost all the same features. It can print in color using individual cartridges, scan A4 pages at high resolution, and supports copying. The printer's four-color individual cartridges are 50% more efficient than combined color cartridges. The built-in Wi-Fi feature can be used for networking or direct Wi-Fi connection to a smartphone.
It can print on envelopes and glossy photo paper, and the main tray holds 100 sheets of A4 paper. The only thing missing is automatic two-sided printing, which is a bit of a letdown, but given Epson's big discounts, we think this model is great value for money. Another potential issue with this printer is that it's not very user-friendly to set up, which can be time-consuming.
At first glance, the Brother DCP-J1800DW is an affordable all-in-one inkjet printer, but it has an interesting extra feature. It’s a basic business printer designed for home office workers with moderate printing needs. It’s compact enough to fit on a shelf, but it still features a useful 20-sheet automatic document feeder, USB and Ethernet ports, and easy cable management. Plus, it comes with a guillotine. Wait, what?
This is the first printer of its kind to feature a built-in cutter that can cut A4 to A5 formats. This unique advantage is crucial for reducing consumable costs and reducing document sizes, and even if you never use the cutter, this printer is still a great choice. Since an inkjet printer is cartridge-based, ink costs are usually higher, but the print quality remains crisp and documents and photos are consistently high quality. If you don’t plan on printing large volumes of pages, we recommend this compact inkjet printer without reservation.
The cheapest printer ink can be found in a large number of online stores that offer replacement cartridges, toner, and ink in bottles for all types of printers.
The three main categories of printers are inkjet printers, laser printers, and cartridge printers. Inkjet printers are generally inexpensive, but replacement cartridges can be expensive. They are great for printing photos and everyday documents. Laser printers are more expensive, but the toner is cheap. These printers are popular with businesses and are ideal for printing crisp, clear documents. Cartridge printers are actually inkjet printers, but they can be manually refilled with ink from a bottle. If you want an inexpensive printer that will last a long time, a cartridge printer is a good choice. To help you decide, we've looked at the best inkjet printers, the best laser printers, and the best cartridge printers.
Features: The best budget printers aren't always simple and feature-less. You can find plenty of budget printers that come with an automatic document feeder (ADF) and automatic duplexing for double-sided printing. We also test a range of budget printers that can print, scan, copy, and fax, though the quality of the cheapest printers can vary. For more, we've reviewed the best all-in-one printers.
Wired/wireless: Printers come standard with the ability to connect to a laptop or desktop computer, but if you want to easily print from a mobile device (or don't have any spare ports), look for an affordable printer that supports wireless printing via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. To learn more, we tested the best wireless printers.
Price You can find printers with all the features and affordable prices in a wide range, so be sure to shop around for the best deal—faster print speeds, higher resolutions, and extra features like scanning, copying, and faxing will usually cost you more. When assessing your budget, check the prices of printer ink, cartridges, and toner. We’ve seen some great deals on printers during the Prime Day and Black Friday sales.
Do you have a preferred brand? We tested the best Epson printers, the best Canon printers, the best Brother printers and the best HP printers.
Our team of expert reviewers have tested hundreds of printers, including the best Mac printers, the best wireless printers and the best wide-format printers. No matter your budget, we put them all – from the best portable printers to the best A3 printers – through the same tests to find out the pros and cons of each.
To test the most affordable printers, we looked at the prices of printers and their cartridges. If a printer is cheap but the cartridges are expensive, the user will end up spending more, depending on how much they use it and how efficient it is.
We analyze the print quality of printers by printing the same batch of text documents on all printers and checking how they perform when printing both color and black and white documents. We evaluate the quality, brightness, and overall accuracy of color prints.
We also took into account the build quality, design, and size of the printer and included both small and large printers in our list.
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Jim has been reviewing printers for over twenty years and has written over 100 reviews for TechRadar Pro to date. From pocket printers to industrial dye-sublimation printers, Jim has tried them all, tested them himself, and even printed on T-shirts. His expertise also extends to consumables (paper, ink, toner), and his printer buying guide makes it easy to compare these essential peripherals.
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